Has anyone tried making their own solder mask for homemade PCB's? I'll be using some 0.5mm TQFP packages on an upcoming project and it would be nice if I could get some sort of solder mask between the pins to reduce solder bridges when drag soldering. So far my best idea is to spray the whole board with high temp spray paint and scrape away the paint on the pads with a knife. Alternatively I've seen high temp. felt tip markers which might be less messy. Does this sound feasible? Does real solder mask have some special property which makes it repel solder? And, no, I'm not interested in making a stencil and using UV curable paint.

I have Mike - mmcp42 helped us modify the 0.5mm pitch Mega2560 pads to make them a touch narrower, and iteadstudio was able to apply soldermask in between pins.The standard eagle footprint has pads that are a little too wide.

I have Mike - mmcp42 helped us modify the 0.5mm pitch Mega2560 pads to make them a touch narrower, and iteadstudio was able to apply soldermask in between pins.The standard eagle footprint has pads that are a little too wide.